


Due East

by Severely_Lupine



Category: Eastwick, due South
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-21
Updated: 2009-11-21
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Severely_Lupine/pseuds/Severely_Lupine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser comes to Eastwick in search of--Well, it really doesn't matter.  He can't get a word in edgewise about it anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Due East

**Author's Note:**

> Set after Eastwick's fifth episode (the one where the moon made everyone crazy).

Fraser stepped off the bus into the town square. Eastwick appeared every bit the quaint little town the city's tourism website had made it out to be. From the street corner he was standing on, he could see several small shops, four restaurants, and a newsstand--none of which was what he was looking for.

Spotting a coffee stand not far away, he approached the first person he saw and tapped her on the shoulder.

"Excuse me."

The woman jumped, nearly spilling her coffee, and turned. "Oh! Darryl! I mean, Mr. Van Horne. I didn't see you there."

Fraser cocked his head just slightly. "I'm sorry for startling you. I'm afraid you seem to have me confused with someone else. My name is Benton Fraser, Royal Canadian Mounted Police. I've come to Eastwick on a matter of some urgency--"

"Wait. What?" The woman squinted and gesticulated excessively. "Is this about that article I wrote? Are you punishing me now? Making fun of me? What is this?"

"I assure you, ma'am, I'm not--"

"You bought a Mountie costume?" she asked incredulously, looking him up and down.

Fraser looked down at his uniform, confused. "It's not a costume."

"Look, I'm sorry I wrote it, okay?" The woman walked past him. He followed, trying to explain, but she kept talking. "Isn't it enough that I got fired? Now you've got to rub it in my face?"

"Ma'am, I'm quite certain you and I have never met. Perhaps I should start again. You see, it all started when I came to Chicago on the trail of my father's killers. For reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture--"

She spun on him, splashing herself with coffee in the process. "I get it! Okay? You're Darryl Van Horne! I believe you, all right? Now can you just leave me alone?"

"My name isn't Darryl," Fraser insisted, trying to get some handle on this conversation. "I'm Constable Benton Fraser, and I'll gladly leave you alone, but if you could first direct me to the police station, I would be most obliged."

She glared at him as if waiting for the punch line to a truly offensive joke. When he didn't speak, she pointed to the building they were standing in front of, then stormed away. Fraser looked up at the building.

EASTWICK POLICE STATION

"Ah," he said, smiling. Then, to the retreating back of the very agitated woman, he called, "Thank you kindly!"

**

The Eastwick police were remarkably unforthcoming with anything that might be helpful to him. If Fraser weren't entirely certain he'd never laid eyes on any of those people before, he'd be inclined to think they all had some sort of personal grudge against him. Whatever the reason, it meant he had to resort to canvassing the neighborhood, asking the local citizens if they knew anything which might be of help.

He stepped into a shop filled with various crafty knickknacks and miniature statues of nude obese women.

"Interesting," he observed. "Reminiscent of certain stone age sculptures, most notably the Venus of Willendorf. One doesn't see this sort of work much any more. Quite remarkable."

"Really?" said the woman at the counter, without looking up. She was writing in a ledger of some sort. Her tone was strangely hostile. "Not too _stunted_ for you?"

"Not at all," he said.

Finally, she finished what she was doing and looked at him.

"Halloween's tomorrow, dumbass."

Fraser blinked. "Excuse me?"

"You're a little early with the costume."

"Ah," said Fraser. "No, I really am a mountie."

"Sure ya are," the woman replied, coming around the counter to straighten items on one of the shelves. After a moment, she looked at him again. "And by the way, if you hope some Dudley Do-Right routine will get me to have sex with you, you're mistaken." She turned back to what she was doing, but before Fraser could respond, she added, "And I'm not into role-playing, so you can forget that, too."

"No, ma'am. No, I certainly wouldn't . . ." Fraser felt like he'd been broad-sided and didn't know how to respond to any of what this woman was saying. He cleared his throat. "I should introduce myself. Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP." He offered his hand for her to shake.

She shot him a _not amused_ glare. "RCMP?"

"Royal Canadian Mounted Police."

She went back to arranging some clay vases on a shelf above her head. "Whatever, Darryl. I don't have the energy for your crap today. I've got . . . things to figure out."

Fraser moved closer until he was standing beside her. "Ma'am, I believe I've somehow given you the wrong impression. I am a mountie, in town on a matter of official business. Whoever this Darryl person is, I am not him. And I must say, given the reception I've gotten in so far from people who think that I _am_ him, I'm rather glad that I'm not."

"Darryl, will you just--" She spun to face him, her annoyance having transitioned into something quite like anger, but she apparently didn't realize how close he was standing. As she moved her hand down from the shelf, it knocked over a clay vase--which fell directly onto Fraser's head.

Fraser caught the vase before it hit the floor, thus saving it from breaking, but his left hand had already flown to where the vase had slammed into his face.

"Oh!" the woman cried, taking the vase from him and setting it aside. She tried to pull Fraser's hand away so she could see his face. "I'm so sorry! It just . . ."

"It's quite all right, ma'am," Fraser said, but when he looked at his hand, there was a fair amount of blood. "Just an accident."

He could feel blood dripping from a gash above his eyebrow. The woman looked at him with far more concern than he might have expected, given the way she was talking to him a moment ago. "That doesn't look good," she said. "You'll probably need stitches."

Fraser smiled--because what else could he have done?--and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket, pressing it to the cut. "Merely a flesh wound," he said. "I've had worse injuries. But if you could point me to the nearest hospital, I would appreciate it."

**

Fraser sat in the exam room, wondering at the circumstances he'd found himself in since his arrival in Eastwick. Not only did the local police seem entirely disinclined to assist him, but he'd now been yelled at by two different women who had him mistaken with someone else--someone who, apparently, had managed to offend both of them in some way.

He hadn't been waiting five minutes when the door opened and a red-haired nurse stepped in.

"Darryl? What happened?" she asked, putting on a pair of latex gloves.

Fraser took a deep breath. "As I tried to explain to the admitting nurse, my name is not Darryl Van Horne. It's Benton Fraser. I was talking to a lovely woman in a shop filled with very unique pottery when a piece of said pottery dislodged itself from a precariously placed shelf and collided with my skull."

The nurse started cleaning the wound. "You were talking to Roxie and one of her statues fell on you?"

"Well, I didn't get the woman's name, and it was a vase, actually . . . but yes, that is the long and short of it."

The nurse worked quickly. In a moment, she was done cleaning and was preparing the needle to stitch him up. "I've told Roxie not to put heavy pieces on those rickety old shelves. One of them already collapsed--Did you just say you're _not_ Darryl Van Horne?"

The nurse had stopped to look him in the eye, allowing Fraser to nod. "Constable Benton Fraser. RCMP."

This information seemed to upset the nurse greatly, and she began examining him more closely. "The blow must have knocked something loose in there, given you amnesia or something . . ."

"On the contrary," Fraser assured her, "I've had amnesia, and I'm quite certain this isn't it."

She wasn't listening to him. " . . . I'll have to call a doctor in once I'm through with the stitches."

"That won't be necessary," Fraser said, then reached into his pocket and pulled out his I.D. "As you can see, my name _is_ Benton Fraser."

"You got a fake I.D.? Wow, you really don't skimp on costumes, do you?" She laughed to herself. "But then, you don't skimp on anything else, so why would you?"

"Tell me," Fraser said, deciding to take a different approach. "This Darryl Van Horne, what sort of person is he?"

The nurse was reluctant to answer, but finally she said, "Rich. Charming. Mysterious."

"And do I appear to be any of those things?"

The nurse tied off the last stitch, cut the string, and looked at him. "Well, yes. I mean, your voice does seem a bit less . . . sultry than usual, but otherwise, yeah, you kinda do."

Fraser reached up and felt the stitches in his head. Satisfied that the job was done, he got up. "Thank you kindly, ma'am, but now I really must be going."

She looked at him oddly. "Darryl, I really think you should--"

The door opened and a ridiculously tall man stepped through. He handed a piece of paper to the nurse, who read it, then told the man, "All right. But you bring him right back if he doesn't get over this soon." The man nodded slowly, and the nurse left.

Fraser tried to guess who the man was, but he came up empty. The man reached into his jacket, withdrew another piece of paper, and handed it to Fraser.

It was an invitation. To what, it didn't specify.

"Thank you," Fraser replied, "but I really need to be going." The man inclined his head in an insisting way. "Well, all right, yes, I suppose a brief visit wouldn't hurt."

**

Fraser didn't have to wonder long to whom the opulent mansion he'd been led into belonged.

"You are one damn fine looking man."

Fraser had heard things along these lines said to him on many occasions, but ordinarily it was a woman saying them.

He turned, trying to find the source of the voice. "Ah, thank you, but--" Then he saw a man walking toward him. It was . . . himself.

"So, this is my impersonator," said the man, sizing him up. "I'm Darryl Van Horne."

"I see," said Fraser, and he really did. "I'm Constable Benton Fraser, RCMP. Mr. Van Horne, I seem once again to have found myself caught in the middle of a sizable misunderstanding. I'm not impersonating you. Indeed, I've done everything I could think of to convince people that I am _not_ you since I arrived."

"Are you familiar with the term doppelganger, Benton?"

"Of course. Why?"

Van Horne waved a hand dismissively. "Nothing." He strode by Fraser and passed in front of what appeared to be a giant statue in his--and by extension, Fraser's--image. It was disconcerting. "Innocent as I'm sure your intentions in this town are, Benton, you do pose something of a problem to me. I can't have someone going around looking like me, helping old ladies across the street and saying things like, 'Thank you kindly.' I do have an image to maintain."

"Understood."

"So why don't you just tell me why you're here so we can get you on your way."

"I would very much like that, Mr. Van Horne, and if you could assist my investigation in any way, I would be most grateful." Fraser proceeded to tell him about the case that had brought him to town, as much as he thought prudent to tell a total stranger. "And so you see, if I can find the man who did it, I'll take him back to face charges and I won't have to bother the people of Eastwick any more."

"Well, that's easy enough," Van Horne said, smiling. His eyes lingered on Fraser in a disturbing, predatory way. After a moment, he strode to a small desk, wrote something on a piece of paper, and brought the paper back to Fraser. There was an address on it.

Fraser smiled, folded the paper, and put it in his pocket. "Thank you kindly."

"Don't trust him," said a familiar voice, and Fraser had to stop himself from looking behind him at his father. Fraser Sr. really did have a way of dropping in at the most inopportune times.

"Why not?" Fraser said under his breath. Van Horne didn't respond, but just kept smiling at him.

"Look at that face, those eyes. He looks like he'd sooner eat you than help you. He's a wolf, son."

"You're paranoid," Fraser told him. Wolf indeed. "Thank you for your help, Mr. Van Horne. I can find my way out." He shook the man's hand and headed toward the exit.

If he hadn't had especially superb hearing, he might have missed the parting comment Van Horne made as Fraser crossed the threshold.

"You should listen to your father more, Benton."


End file.
